


Something with a Capital "S"

by a_pottymouthed_parrot



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: (basically book canon but Eddie lives and Richie is a stand-up comedian), Canon - IT (Book/Movie/Miniseries Combination), Eventual Smut, Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23843248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_pottymouthed_parrot/pseuds/a_pottymouthed_parrot
Summary: Richie and Eddie have been in love with each other since before they knew they could feel that sort of thing. Written sort of in the style of the book except in first person perspective. It switches between Richie and Eddie's points of view. It also switches between the past and the present, explaining their lives apart from each other after they move away from Derry to explain the way they are as adults.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 1





	1. Steel Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after they all meet up in the library, Richie's perspective.

(Derry, 1985)

Ben is leading us from a few feet ahead, which is odd because Eddie has always been the group GPS. Despite this, Eddie and I walk back to the townhouse side by side. He looks so beautiful in this light, hardly any light at all. He would look more beautiful in more light because then I could let myself memorize the details of his face. The scattered freckles, gelled hair, and shallow wrinkles on his forehead from furrowing his eyebrows the way he does when he overthinks. Our hands brush, barely a touch, but it lights up a switchboard of nerves I didn’t realize were sensitive. Something comes rushing back to me. Something with a capital “S”. Something with a capital “S” that made me freeze in my tracks when I saw him at the Chinese restaurant and Immediately thought: _Here’s the reason none of my marriages have worked out_. He must have felt it too. He must have because he looks up at me with his grey-blue eyes, steel blue, looks down again, and then slowly reaches for my hand. I reach for him back, and lace my fingers in his, squeezing gently. He steps over a crack in the sidewalk. _Force of habit I guess_. And we keep walking in silence. When we get to the townhouse, despite being on different floors, I walk him to his room. _Nothing is going to happen. We both know that. Something won’t let us, but I just want to hold his hand a bit longer._ We choose the stairs. 6th floor and we choose to take the stairs with nothing but sideways glances and nods. We make it to the third stair well before he is breathing in his sort of tight labored way and needs to use his aspirator, digging it out of the pocket of his chinos and blasting off. Both of our palms are sweating and I feel like a girl at a middle school dance. I want to dance, and jump and scream at the moon because I am finally holding the hand I have wanted to hold since I was eight or nine years old.

Being in love with Eddie Kasprack was like learning to walk. You begin to do it when you're very young and it’s hard at first. You’ve never done this or felt this before and you tumble and hit your head over and over, but by the time you’ve grown up you do it without thinking. I did not think about him for twenty four years, but now, as we cross the threshold of the final set of stairs hand in hand I remember how long I have wanted this. How it felt the first time we held hands at thirteen. The day I left Derry. Something with a capital “S” else happened that day too, and it wasn’t hopping in a U-haul moving truck and leaving him and the others forever. Well it was that but it was something more. Something that gave me hope and kept me walking, and dreaming, and hooking up with tiny, loud men from gay bars in secret.

> “This is me.” He said when we reached the door of his room.
> 
> “Did you feel like you remembered something too Ed’s?”
> 
> “Don’t call me Ed’s.” And then he chuckled. “You know I actually like it when you call me Ed’s. I guess correcting you is just a habit.” Our hands were still intertwined. He runs his free hand through his hair nervously.
> 
> “I guess calling you Ed’s to annoy you is a habit too.”
> 
> “Yeah I remember something.”
> 
> “Something with a capital “S”?”
> 
> “Absolutely, something important.”
> 
> “Something about me leaving Derry?”
> 
> “Thirteen.” He nods, and squeezes my hand. “Would you like to come in and figure it out?” I nod this time, and he lets go so he can use his key to unlock his door. We walk in and sit at the little breakfast table that sits against the wall. “Coffee?” He offers, pointing at the coffee maker in the hotel room’s kitchenette.
> 
> “I’m good thanks.”
> 
> “Me too.” And he laughs again. Has Eddie always laughed this much? I thought I was the one who got off the good ones around here.
> 
> “Have any good…”

(Derry, 1960)

> “...chucks lately Ed’s?” I asked, swinging my arms around his frail shoulders.
> 
> “I can’t believe you’re moving Richie! I just can’t believe it.” He crossed his arms and looked at the ground.
> 
> “Well you better believe it babe because I’ve got a one way ticket outta this dump” I said in a movie star voice.
> 
> “That’s a new voice, and don’t call me babe.” He picked my arm up by the wrist and removed it from his shoulders. I tried not to let that sting.
> 
>   
> “What can I say, I’m a young whippersnapper with nothin’ in my pockets but lint and dreams.” I threw my hand across my forehead dramatically.
> 
> “I said it was new, I didn’t say it was good.” He rolled his eyes. “I am going to miss you though asshole.”
> 
> “Wanna help me finish packing?”
> 
> “Does that mean you’ll leave sooner?” I couldn't tell if that would be a good or bad thing for him, and that put fresh splinters in my thirteen year old heart. “No but it means that I’ll have a little bit more time to hang out before we go. My old man said that the truck leaves at 3:00 with or without little ol’ me.” I ruffled his hair.
> 
> “Knock it off!” He exclaimed, fixing his hair, “And you’re hardly little Rich, puberty hit you like a truck,” It had. I had grown six inches that summer, Eddie on the other hand was barely five feet. “My mom says that late bloomers always grow for longer so one of these days I’m going to be taller than you.”
> 
>   
> “I doubt that Spaghetti man. So will ya help me pack or not?”
> 
>   
> “Yeah sure.” And we started walking to my house, hands brushing and then jerking away.When we got to my soon to be vacant house, I could see the color leave Eddie’s face. The little letters that spelled “Tozier” on the mailbox were carefully peeled off by my mother, leaving nothing but sun-bleached shadows in their wake. “Eddie’s gonna help me pack ma!” I yelled when I got inside.
> 
>   
> “Is going to Richie!” She corrected me from the kitchen. “I don’t want you talking like a hooligan!”
> 
>   
> “My nickname ain’t Trashmouth for nothin’!” I shouted back, grabbing Eddie’s hand and running up the stairs. I could practically see her rolling her eyes and shaking her head. I could actually see Eddie doing the same, but with a bemused, blushing smile on top of the thin layer of embarrassment.

There were thirteen flattened cardboard boxes leaning against one of the walls in my room, completely unpacked minus the dresser, the bookshelf and my bed. Weird square shapes of untouched carpet where they once resided lay like chalk outlines around dead bodies in Dick Tracy. Eddie let out a little sigh and we both realized he had been holding his breath. Without saying a word, he assembled one of the cardboard boxes and started packing up my collection of funny books. Archie comics, Spider-man and Batman. He and I used to read the Spider-man ones together. Spider-man was his favorite, so I guess it became mine too. He used to come over and we would sit tangled up in the hammock in my backyard and read the same issue of Spider-man. _Who would I read Spider-man with in California?_ We packed up in silence. The comics, my records, clothes, books, knick-knacks and talismans all out of sight but not out of mind. _Will they hold up in California without the humidity of Derry? Will everything shrivel and dry out like a worm on the sidewalk?_

>   
> “That took a lot longer than we thought it would. It’s 2:30.” Eddie said as he taped the last box shut and glanced at his watch. I didn’t do much packing to be honest. I was mostly watching him, and the careful calculated, and methodical way he packed and stacked my things. His grey blue eyes welled up once in a while, steel blue, and he would gently wipe them, glance at me to make sure I hadn’t seen, (I would promptly look away) and then go about his business.
> 
>   
> “Well, I’ll walk you home then. We’ll take the long way.” There was a little path that led through a small bout of trees that connected our streets. It would take half an hour to get there and back when the short way took us five to ten minutes, depending on the conversation. He just nodded. “I’m going to walk Eddie home!” I shouted at my mother.
> 
>   
> “Be back by 3:00!” She shouted back.
> 
>   
> “We will leave without you!” My father chimed in.
> 
>   
> “I wish they would.” I whispered in Eddie’s ear. He just nodded and gave a slight sad smile. This time, as we were walking quietly, occasionally reminiscing, when our hands brushed I didn’t jerk away. I grabbed his hand and I held it, grateful that he did not jerk away and run. I think he knew somehow that I was trying to explain that I felt towards him the way Bill and Ben felt towards Bev. I grew even a little braver before we emerged from the trees. “I want to try something but you have to promise me you aren’t going to hate me.”
> 
>   
> “I don’t think I could hate you if I tried Richie.” He said softly, his eyes widened a little as if he was surprised by his own admission of fondness.
> 
>   
> “I just need you to promise okay?”
> 
>   
> “Fine, Jeez Louise I promise.” He held out one of his pinkies and I linked it with mine. And then I pulled him towards me by that same hand and kissed him. Just a peck. Soft and childlike and innocent but my face was flaming. When I pulled away he was beet red.
> 
>   
> “Do you hate me? I’m sorry I didn’t mean to-”
> 
>   
> “I promised I wouldn’t hate you, and I am a man of my word.” He said slowly and quietly. “Besides, I kind of liked it.”
> 
>   
> “Yeah?”
> 
>   
> “Yeah.” He grabbed my hand again and we walked the rest of the length to his house in silence. He waved to me as I jogged back to my house so I wouldn’t be late.

(Derry, 1985)

> “My first kiss. That I count at least.” He nodded. “Certainly something.”
> 
>   
> “Why is it the first one you count? We all kissed Bev in the sewers. Well we did more than kiss Bev in the sewers…”
> 
>   
> “I think you know why Richie.” I think I did know why. The same reason he grabbed his aspirator with a white fist when Mike was talking about the It’s first victims this summer. “I’m queerer than a three dollar bill.” He had that same, doe-eyed look he did when he said he couldn’t hate me in the trees. An admission. Something he had thought but never said out loud so he let it fester and grow into his head till he figured it was rooted there and wouldn’t come out. Neither of us could come out, not yet anyways, and the magnetic pull that has always been between us is stronger than ever. But something else is pulling us apart. _We can't admit it until It's dead._ I realized. _It is keeping us too afraid to be together._
> 
>   
> “Me too Ed’s. Well sort of. I think I like both.” He nodded.
> 
>   
> “I think there’s a word for that but I can’t think of it off the top of my head.” Followed by silence. And then, out of nowhere, “I want to try something and you have to promise not to hate me.”
> 
>   
> “I don’t think I could hate you if I tried Ed’s.”
> 
>   
> “Don’t call me Ed’s.” But that was all the consent and permission he needed to grab me by the collar of my button down shirt and kiss me from the other side of the table. This kiss was harder than the one in the woods, and longer. Our mouths moved against each other and I had one hand in his hair while the other one drew idle circles on his bicep. He was surprisingly muscular. The kind of muscular it takes work to get to. He works out. He slipped his tongue into my mouth as he slowly walked around the table to straddle me in my chair, his hands travelling up my sides beneath my shirt as he kisses me like there’s no tomorrow. Gee whiz, there might not be a tomorrow. His hips moved against mine, but unlike his kissing they were slow and gentle. This almost feels like too much. This does feel like too much and as much as I want to keep kissing him. Maybe do more than kiss him, it’s too much and we have to rest up. We have a big day ahead of us. And that fear, the deep deep dark fear of It is pulling us apart. _It has a hold on me and if we keep it up, It could hurt Eddie. It could kill him. My love for him could end with a funeral._ I saw it, I felt It's presence in this room, and despite Eddie's hands and mouth all over me, exactly where I've always wanted them to be, I started crying.
> 
>   
> “Eddie baby, we should go to bed.”
> 
>   
> “To the bed, we can take this to the bed yeah,” He starts dragging me by my arm and I smile a little bit, and then he saw the look in my eyes, and the silent tears streaming, and his face froze. _He feels It too doesn't he?_
> 
>   
> “No to bed bed. Like go to sleep. Trust me I want this as much as you do but I don’t think we should. Not until It’s dead anyways. I feel like something won’t let us until we kill It, and we also need sleep.” He nods sadly.
> 
>   
> “It was a great kiss though.”
> 
>   
> “It really was. And we will continue tomorrow once It’s dead and buried okay?” He nods sadly again, walking me to the door. “One for the road?” He pulls me down to him and kisses me again. The same desperation, the same heat just slower and slightly sadder. It almost burns, like a shot of whiskey going down without a chaser. _I love him so much, it's going to eat me from the inside out._
> 
>   
> “See ya later alligator.”
> 
>   
> “After a while, crocodile.”

I take the elevator back to my own floor.


	2. Perrier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The actual reason Henry goes after Eddie first is because It knows about Richie and Eddie's kiss because their love is powerful enough to destroy It; so he sent Henry to get rid of them first and then the other losers. F Slur warning. Patrick and Henry's little moment in the junkyard is mentioned briefly too. Eddie's POV

(Derry 1985)

I heard a knock on the door.  _ Maybe it’s Richie. Maybe He changed his mind.  _ I thought. There weren’t peep holes in the doors. I had no way to check.  _ And besides, who else could it be? It has to be Richie, no one else would knock at my door this late-  _ I opened the door expecting to see a tall, gangly man with curly hair and instead, a rather portly man. Grey hair almost covering his eyes, like it was once short but hasn't been cut in a while so now it's curling out because his eyelashes are stopping it from falling into his unfeeling eyes. That’s the main thing that scared me about him, his eyes. They were familiar. It took me a while to recognize him,  _ Henry fucking Bowers.  _ He had aged way more than the rest of us. Guilt from crimes he didn’t commit acted like a time machine to the future. I did not have time to wonder if that meant he would die before the rest of us before he lunged at me with a knife. I dodged his first thrust, stumbling backwards into the hotel room as he closed and locked the door behind us. I swallowed but my mouth and throat were dry. 

“I’ve got you now fag. Babyfag.”  _ He knows, or It knows about Richie and I’s kiss. Richie was right. It really won’t let us be together until It’s dead.  _ Despite everything Henry Bowers threw at us as kids, he never called any of us fags before. Maybe it was because of what Bev saw at the junk-yard, Patrick touching him.  _ He’s gotta be a fag too _ . 

“Do you?” He lunged again, this time missing, but tackling me as he fell forward. I patted around in the dark for something, anything to get him off of me. My fingers clutch around cool glass, cool green glass I can’t quite see from the bottom shelf of my nightstand.  _ I knew Perrier was good for your health. I  _ chuckled to myself, despite the man on top of me, and the fear slithering its way into my throat like a snake. I smashed the bottom of the bottle off on the leg of the nightstand and plunged the jagged edge into his chest, pushing hard. I pushed him off of me and called Bill. He’ll know what to do. 


	3. Wallet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few months prior to going to Derry, Richie finds Eddie's wallet in New York city. A dumb moment of serendipity. Inspired by the song "Wallet" by Regina Spektor

(New York City, 1985 (three months before Mike’s phone calls)) 

It was somewhere close to three in the morning, on some manhattan street. The warm glow of the street-lights cast long spidery shadows on the pavement. There was a brown, leather wallet sitting there in the middle of the street, out of place sure but also somehow completely adapted to the concrete jungle biome. I looked around for it’s owner, someone walking ahead of me or someone who switched streets but there was no one. Not a soul. I lean down to pick it up and slip it into my pocket.  _ I’ll take the cash and leave it on a subway or something.  _ But I had plenty of money.  _ Or maybe I’ll return it? _

When I make it back to my hotel room, all I want to do is lie face-down in the white feather pillows and drift into oblivion, but the wallet is watching me. I turn the light of the lamp on and lay it’s contents on the weird green carpet. The kind of carpet that is in churches and elementary schools. The kind that has little flecks of other carpet colors in it but you would only know if you looked really close. I spread his belongings out before me like tarot cards. 

I had had my tarot cards read once by a girl I slept with in college. The first card (the fool) she said, represented me. Except she said it was reversed so I was chaotic, with a lack of judgement. The second card (two of cups) represented the thing or person I needed. She said that it was probably a person because the two of cups represent a long distance relationship that has been separated by something beyond our control. I need this person or thing, according to her, to achieve the third card (the lovers), my eventual happiness. The last card (nine of swords) symbolized the thing I needed to overcome to find the thing I needed to find my happiness. The nine of swords means fear. I’ll never forget that because she leaned in close enough so that I could smell her cherry chapstick and whispered “What are you afraid of Richie Tozier?” Gooseflesh ran up and down my arms,  _ werewolves _ I thought.  _ That’s stupid Richie, you are a grown ass man. You aren’t scared of werewolves anymore. _ I could not answer her. So I kissed her instead. 

Inside this man’s wallet (Eddie Kasprak’s wallet), there was a New York driver’s licence that expired last week, a Blockbuster card, an old stick of juicy fruit, and a crumpled receipt for a pair of Doc Martens. There was also a credit card with his name on it  _ obviously, who else’s name would be on it? _ , and seven dollars in cash. He looked familiar. But in a weird way, like when you see child actors you recognize all grown-up in made for TV movies. I resolved to take the wallet to Blockbuster. They would find this Eddie Kasprak fellow and I’ll never think of him again. 

I don’t even have a wallet,  _ chaotic with a lack of judgement, _ I just keep my license and my credit cards together with a blue rubber band. 

(Derry 1985)

  
I jolt awake as my phone is ringing, but I know before I answer that Eddie is in trouble.  _ Nine of swords means fear.  _


End file.
